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The Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States 
Headquarters Commandery in Chief 
1805 Pine Street 

Philadelphia, Penna. 

August 30, 1924. 

To the Commanders and Companions of 
The Military Order of the Loyal Legion. 

As the Legislative and Executive Departments of the government 
have designated September 12th as “Defense Day,” it is well for all 
patriotic organizations to be interested in this national enterprise and 
to take such action as will best promote an interest in and devotion 
to the welfare of our great Republic and its cherished Institutions. The 
Loyal Legion demonstrated its patriotism on more than a hundred 
battlefields and for more than a half century in all sections of our 
vast country, it has encouraged and advocated true patriotism as the 
surest safeguard to the permanent welfare of our beloved country. 

All true citizens should have an intelligent knowledge of the 
history of the valor, fortitude and sacrifice required to secure our 
independence and to establish and maintain our national sovereignty. 
In order to exercise the duties and responsibilities of sovereign citizens, 
every one thus entitled to that great privilege should have a thorough 
knowledge of the advantages and blessings of our system of 
government. 

Let us for a moment consider our present condition—more than 
one hundred millions of people occupying a continent, walled in by 
two great oceans, exercising the largest measure of civil govern¬ 
ment, enjoying more independence, freedom of thought and action, 
more security, prosperity and happiness than any people have ever 
enjoyed, in the world’s history. We might well ask the question “Do 
our people rightly comprehend and appreciate these unprecedented and 
bountiful blessings? Do our citizens realize the centuries of fortitude, 
dangers, valor and sacrifice endured by our ancestors before our 
freedom and independence was secured?” Our ancestors had long 
endured the oppression and tyranny of arbitrary and, autocratic govern¬ 
ments. A little more than a century ago the great mass of the human 
race were serfs, slaves or abject subjects of some despotic power, 
yet the spirit of liberty and the rights of the individual had been 
awakened in the mind and hearts of the people and they hoped and 
prayed for a better sphere of life. 

The Magna Charter—June 15, 1215—The Compact on the 
Mayflower—November 11, 1620 and the Bill of Rights—February 
13th, 1688 were instrumental in promoting a desire for freedom and 
creating a more enlightened, civilization. The splendid patriotism of 
our fathers in 1776 inspired by the spirit of independence and love of 
liberty contended against the most powerful nation of the world for 
seven long years to establish our independence. That was a heroic 
age when the resolute men in every section of the sparsely populated 
colonies of the Atlanitc coast espoused the cause of liberty. It brought 
forward from among that self-reliant, sturdy race the noblest and the 
bravest, the highest and most representative men of any age of any 


country. Orators, scholars, statesmen, soldiers were the controlling 
spirits. There never has been a time, both in war and in peace—when 
this country has produced as strong a class of men intellectually, 
physically and, morally as the men ot that age. The highest, noblest 
and grandest of them all was that great character who was not only 
first m war but first in peace. 

The citizens of America need not look elsewhere than to the 
Father of their country for an exemplar and a true patriotic character, 
JMo more instructive lesson could be given to the rising generations 
than to point them to his public acts, his state papers, his wise councils, 
his remarkable prophecy, and the sage warnings of the patriot and 
statesman who comprehended the passions and irailities of the human 
heart, and the dangers that would environ the great government that 
he had been so instrumental in establishing. He desired to prevent 
our nation from running the course that had “hitherto marked the 
destiny of nations” and it was his prayer that the “Union might be 
perpetual,” that the “free constitution might be sacredly maintained 
and its administration conducted with wisdom and virtue,” that the 
“happiness of the people under the auspices of liberty might be 
complete” and that they “might have the glory of recommending it to 
the affection and, adoption of every nation that was as yet a stranger 
to it.” He wrote to Lafayette that he “believed they had created the 
best constitution ever devised by human minds and that he hoped it 
might be administered with such wisdom and integrity that in time 
the people of the country would have the glory of commending it to 
the peoples of the world who were then strangers to it.” That prayer 
of Washington’s has been answered. 

Patriotism does not alone require heoric acts upon the red fields 
of war. The patriotism of Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, 
Thomas Jefferson, Roger Sherman, Governeur Morris, Alexander 
Hamilton and their compatriots was as grand and glorious as that 
of the martial heroes of that day. 

We believe our present form of government is, the best to inspire 
the spirit of patriotism and to encourage its universal existence. 
Fortunately, patriotism, through the fortitude and heroism of those 
who have gone before, renders it unnecessary that the men of the 
present day should pay the price of liberty, independence, and good 
government; and fortunate will this nation be if it preserves them for 
many generations without the sacrifice that it has hitherto cost to 
achieve or maintain them. Naught but universal intelligence, virtue, 
and patriotism will ever maintain those institutions which our fathers 
established. 

I cannot better define patriotism than by bringing the illustration 
home to every citizen. You have the opportunity of benefiting your 
country by your individual acts or of marring its prosperity by indiffer¬ 
ence or disregard to its true interest. 

Every time a citizen exercises his right of citizenship, he either 
performs a treasonable or a patriotic act. Every office holder who 
devotes his time and attention to personal interests or to secure his 
own selfish purposes fails to discharge his duties as the representative 
of a free people. 


The executives, the legislators, the officials, and servants of this 
country will be no better and no worse than the people. It is those 
who exercise the power of citizenship who are responsible for honesty 
and efficiency in our public affairs. The first requisite of good govern¬ 
ment is universal intelligence and moral character. To appreciate the 
principles of our institutions, to be able to exercise the right of citi¬ 
zenship intelligently, the sovereign citizens must be intelligent and 
conscientious. The elements that promote patriotism and good govern¬ 
ment are the family circle, the churches, the public schools, universities 
of learning, the forum, and last, but not least, the press, which is the 
great power to disseminate knowledge and to promote good or evil 
in this country. 

This Republic must continue in its march of progress or it must 
lapse into decay by the acts of its own citizens. There is a sacred 
duty devolving upon every citizen. You can have just as good or just 
as bad a government as you please, be it municipal, state or national, 
and our only hope rests in the people’s devotion to the principles of 
our government. May their patriotism be of the highest order and 
the influence of it felt in every department for the welfare, happiness, 
and progress of our own people. 

At the age of twenty-eight years the immortal Lincoln advocated 
this wise political philosophy in the following language. 

“I know the American people are much attached to their Govern¬ 
ment; I know they would suffer much for its sake; I know they would 
endure evils long and patiently before they would ever think of ex¬ 
changing it for another; yet notwithstanding all this, if the laws be 
continuously disregarded and despised, if their rights to be secure and 
their persons and property are held by no better tenure than the caprice 
of a mob, the alienation of their affections from the Government is 
a natural consequence; and to that sooner or later must come. Here, 
then, is one point from which danger must be expected. The question 
recurs.. ‘How then shall we fortify against it?’ The answer is simple. 

‘Let every American, every lover of Liberty, every wellwisher to his 
posterity swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the 
least particular the laws of the country and never to tolerate their 
violation by others. As the patriots of ’76 supported the Declaration 
of Independence and the Constitution and Laws, let every American 
pledge his life, his property and his sacred honor to this support—let 
every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood 
of his fathers and to tear the charter of his own children’s liberty. 

Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to 
the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, 
seminaries and in colleges; let it be written in primers, in spelling books, 
and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit; proclaimed in 
legislative halls and enforced in courts of justice, and, in short, let 
it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and young, 
the rich and poor, the grave and gay, of both sexes and tongues and 
colors sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars. Whenever a state of 
feeling such as this universally or even very generally prevails through¬ 
out the nation, vain will be every effort and fruitless every attempt to 
subvert our national freedom.” 


With sublime wisdom that pre-eminent statesman, patriot and 
martyr foresaw the dangers that would environ our institutions and 
possibly destroy our liberties and those of every other civilized country. 

The appalling fate of Russia ought to be a warning to America. 
I have been twice in Russia and over the Trans-Siberian Railway. It 
is a country nearly three times the size of the United States and 
richer in mineral and agricultural wealth, yet in the hands of a horde 
of assassins representing one per cent of the population, between two 
and three millions out of employment, in a starving condition. They 
have executed or murdered 1,766,000 men, 800,000 of them farmers, 
353,000 intellectuals—educated men, 10,000 doctors, altogether more 
men than were killed in the British, American, Italian, Belgian and 
Greek armies in the last great war, 

We have all the elements of dissatisfaction, anarchy and revolu¬ 
tion in our country, but fortunately the great mass of our people are 
intelligent, loyal, patriotic citizens. 

The great problem of universal peace and international concord 
is now interesting the people of the world. Today many citizens and 
statesmen are considering this important subject. “Agree with thine 
adversary quickly” is a divine admonition. Possibly from the ashes 
of spoliation and the horrors and sacrifice of war there may come 
forth the spirit of universal peace that shall be appreciated and that 
shall actuate the hearts and motives of the human race. A League of 
Nations has been much under consideration. That is no new theory; 
they have existed for centuries—before the Crusaders and the Holy 
Alliance down to the Triple Alliance and the recent combination of 
nations that controlled the military and naval powers of the world. 
A combination by which a nation surrenders its sovereignty will never 
be popular with the American people . 

A “Congress of Nations” has been advocated by the best minds 
of the world for centuries. The wisest statesmen and philosophers of 
ancient and, modem times have advocated it. It was advocated before 
America was discovered. It is as old as international law. In 1622 a 
French author in a work entitled “Le Nouvenu Cygue }) elaborated and 
advocated the proposition. Nearly a century and a half later Emanuel 
Kant gave it the approval of his profound legal and experienced 
knowledge. The prinicple was advocated more than two hundred 
years ago by that man of courageous faith and philanthropy, William 
Penn. Such brilliant minds as Hugho Gratius, Puffendoff, Vattel, and 
many others have championed the noble cause. Charles Sumner’s 
great oration on the “True Grandeur of Nations” was delivered in 
1845. Great meetings were held during the last century in England, 
France, Germany, Belgium, the Italian States and America advocating 
the propriety of convoking a Congress of Nations. Petitions have been 
addressed to the State Legislative assemblies and to our general 
government asking them to propose a Congress of Nations. 

Legislative action was taken by both Houses of our Congress in 
an act approved August 29, 1916, in the following language, viz. 

“It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States to adjust 
and settle its international disputes through mediation or arbitration 
to the end that war may be honorably avoided.” It looks with appre¬ 
hension and disfavor upon a general increase of armament throughout 


the world, but it realizes that no single nation can disarm, and that 
without a common agreement upon the subject, every considerable power 
must maintain a relative standing in military strength. In view of the 
premises, the President is authorized and requested to invite at an 
appropriate time, not later than the close of the War in Europe, all 
the great governments of the world to send representatives to a con¬ 
ference which shall be charged with the duty of formulating a plan 
for a court of arbitration or other tribunal to which disputed questions 
between nations shall be referred for adjudication and peaceful settle¬ 
ment, and to consider the question of disarmament and submit their 
recommendation to their respective governments for approval. 

“The President is hereby authorized to appoint nine citizens of 
the United States who in his judgment shall be qualified for the 
mission by eminence in the law and by devotion to the cause of peace 
to be representatives of the United States in such conference. 

“The President shall fix the compensation of said representatives 
and such secretaries and other employees as may be needed. Two 
hundred thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary, 
is hereby appropriated and set aside and placed at the disposal of the 
President to carry into effect the provisions of this paragraph.” 

The judicious action of Congress did not destroy the sovereignty 
of the Nations nor create a super government. This wise and humane 
act of the American Congress was passed by practically a unanimous 
vote in both the Senate and House of Representatives and had, it been 
judiciously executed there is every reason to believe it would at that 
time have ended the most deplorable of all wars and saved millions of 
lives and the devastation, desolation and bankruptcy of many countries. 

Two marked illustrations demonstrate the wisdom and, justice 
of adjudicating international controversies by arbitration; one between 
the two great English speaking nations and the other between two 
South American nations memorialized! by that highest monument otf 
the world known as “The Christ of the Andes.” We must earnestly 
pray that human enlightenment and progress may continue to develop 
until the wisest and best minds shall meet in concord without sur¬ 
rendering their individual or national character and sovereignty, and 
shall devise judicious measures to adjust international controversies 
by 'arbitration that will be an event in which humanity will ascend to 
a higher sphere, a more exalted destiny. Then the entire world can 
celebrate the most important and progressive epoch in history. 

We can then realize that— 

“Out of the twilight of the past, 

We move to a diviner light, 

Fof nothing that is wrong can ever last 
Nothing is immortal that is not right.” 


Nelson A. Miles, 
Commander in Chief. 


LIBRARY 




